Egypt reinstates ban on Brotherhood

A court in Egypt has reinstated a ban on the Muslim Brotherhood, the latest crackdown on the movement of the deposed president, Mohamed Morsi, who's been under house arrest since the coup that overthrew his government in July. Since then, security forces have killed hundreds of Islamist supporters, and rounded up thousands more. Bob Bowker had five diplomatic postings in the Middle East before becoming a professor at the ANU's Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies. He joins The World Today to discuss the latest developments.

Transcript

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PETER LLOYD: Now, a court in Egypt has re-instated a ban on the Muslim Brotherhood.

It's the latest crackdown on the movement of the deposed president Mohammed Morsi.

Morsi has been under house arrest since the military coup in July that overthrew his government.

And since then the security forces have killed hundreds of Islamist supporters, and rounded up thousands more.

Bob Bowker had five diplomatic postings in the Middle East before becoming a professor and Middle East specialist at the ANU's Centre for Arab & Islamic Studies.

He spent four years as Ambassador to Egypt.

BOB BOWKER: We've seen a consistent effort by the new government to crush the Muslim Brotherhood, including any activities that arose from its non-government wing as well as the political wing - the Freedom and Justice Party. Virtually all of the leadership of both the Brotherhood and the Freedom and Justice Party are now in jail, including even people who had no real policy consequence, such as their public spokespeople.

But at the same time, we have seen a lack of focus from the government in regard to where they go from here.

PETER LLOYD: The case was brought by a lawyer from a left-wing party on the grounds of protecting Egyptians from violence. In your mind is there any doubt that this is the work of the government, of the new regime?

BOB BOWKER: It certainly is something that the government could have stopped if it had wished, and it is something which is in line with the general direction in which the government has been operating over the last few months.

The issue is whether the government at some point is going to decide to try to go back to the model that it employed under Mubarak of having the Brotherhood technically illegal, but being able to give it sufficient leeway to operate so that it could ratchet the pressure up and down according to the government's preferences of the day.

Or whether it will go back to the Nasseris model which saw violent repression of the Brotherhood and consequently gave rise to terrorist movements that ultimately saw the rebellion against the regime in the 1990s.

PETER LLOYD: The judge ordered the government to seize the Brotherhood's funds and administer its frozen assets. The ruling though didn't specifically mention the Brotherhood's political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party that was the party of the deposed president. But in taking away the money, how could a political party possibly operate?

BOB BOWKER: That's exactly the question. It's very unlikely that the FJP will actually be able to function. I think the consequences for the Muslim Brotherhood as a political organisation will be just as severe as for its role as a social welfare, proselytising organisation.

PETER LLOYD: From your experience of the region, you force the Brotherhood underground, what happens? What are the consequences?

BOB BOWKER: Well the first thing is that you lose the authority and the discipline and the vision of the leadership. Because when they are incarcerated and they are unable to make contact easily with their rank and file, the rank and file will go its own way.

And this is particularly unfortunate because the degree to which the rank and file were ever really sold on the political process, is never entirely clear.

But in circumstances like we now face, there will either, I suspect, be a withdrawal from the political process, or there will in some cases, and it only takes a few per cent, turn towards the violence that we saw a couple of decades ago.

PETER LLOYD: And from a diplomatic perspective, what sort of pressure is this regime under, diplomatically, at the UN, in other fora? How is the world responding, or are they even responding to them and are the using any of the leverage they've got?

BOB BOWKER: I think that the focus recently on Syria and Iran has been so intense, particularly in the light of the chemical weapons incident in Syria, that Egypt has fallen under the radar.

And that is a problem because the degree to which the United States in particular has any leverage at all over the Egyptian government, depends upon it having a very frank and forthright discussion with the Egyptian military about where the United States wants to see Egypt going.

And part of that, I think, has to be the implementation of some punitive measures against the Egyptian military specifically, in order to drive that message home.

At the moment, the Egyptians are being sheltered by their relationship with the Gulf oil-producing states. That is giving them some short-term financial relief. But it's not really addressing any of the core issues that Egypt is going to have to address if it's going to match its demographic and other challenges over the coming few years.

PETER LLOYD: That's Professor Bob Bowker. He's one of our top Middle East specialists at the ANU.